How do you get rid of bossiness?

[Allegra]

I tell her that a “boss” is someone who tells people what to do and how to do it and there is only one boss in her school and that is the teacher. A leader is someone who helps everyone to be successful and do their best. That works with my elementary age kids, but might be a little too philosophical for her at this age.

 

[Allegra]

She absolutely can not go around shoving people in kindergarten. She’s going on exceptional attendance because I work there. If she shoves people, that privilege will be revoked. Even if she wasn’t on exceptional attendance, she would be suspended for shoving people who don’t do things the way she thinks they should be done. Fortunately she knows better than to hit or shove or else she’d have to “grow out of it” on a much more urgent schedule!

 

[Allegra]

That would be nice, but in my experience, when this sort of behavior goes unchecked, the result is more likely to be “judgmental busybody who prefers to use their time and energy criticizing others rather than reflect on their own actions.”

 

[otjm]

I think Cruciferi gave the best recommendation. And I say that having raised twin daughters, and one of them to this day bosses the other one when they get together.

 

[JanetF]

As the oldest child, she’s the “other mother”. This is a common personality trait in oldest children.
Speaking as the third child…I think that her peers will take care of this to a certain extent, but she’ll probably always be bossy toward her younger siblings, and it’s perfectly normal. Also, speaking as the third child…we tend to learn to ignore the directions that we don’t wish to follow and sometimes we gently remind our older sibling that we already have a mother and don’t need another one

Edited to add, my sister who is the oldest child I refer to above is one of the kindest people you’d ever met, has lots of friends, and hasn’t suffered any ill effects of being bossy as a youngster. She learned to channel the trait appropriately.

 

[PetraG]

Since she is doing this at preschool, I’d start with talking to her teacher about what you have witnessed. The teacher may have the feeling that your daughter’s bossiness is in the range that her classmates have been able to mitigate with feedback. After all, one of the points of preschool is teaching children how (and how not to) give each other feedback by giving them peers their own age to interact with. What is “being a jerk” or “getting impatient” when you’re 15 is not out of the ordinary when you only have the empathy, tact and patience of a 5 year old because you are in fact a 5 year old.

As for her relationship with her brother, it isn’t a bad idea to start teaching her now that some day she and he will both be adults together and that she’ll be wise to start encouraging him to know his own mind now. This way she won’t teach him to be the kind who either expects younger people to just do as he says or else just lets other people make all his decisions for him just because they think they know what is best. (You can spare her the knowledge that she doesn’t always know what is best, either, LOL.) They will also grow up with the mutual regard for the opinions of the other and will gradually grow to work out decisions jointly, rather than reaching adulthood without ever shedding the baggage of a pecking order that was appropriate when one was 5 and one was 3 but not when one is 28 and the other is 26.

 

[PetraG]

Speaking as the third child…I think that her peers will take care of this to a certain extent, but she’ll probably always be bossy toward her younger siblings, and it’s perfectly normal.

Speaking a lot-farther-down-than-third child, I’d say that it is never too soon to break it to the children, especially the oldest, that their younger siblings will be fellow adults who will expect to be on an equal footing sooner than anyone will be able to believe.

The resentments that come from pecking orders that grow up without being questioned in childhood have this way of lying dormant until the worst possible time, which is of course when the parents need to have the children take care of them. Parents need to establish the attitude that those who have a “caretaking” roll do not have the right to determine what those they take care of think, feel or want.

Those attitudes, whatever they are, will probably be the ones that determine the way the parents’ autonomy is respected when they become frail and need help in caring for themselves. As for the regard among siblings, if the oldest always gets the burden and right to be a quasi-parent in childhood and into young adulthood, that baggage will probably also be hers when it is time to take care of the parents, too. That isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and it will be a burden the children are better off not having later.

 

[Bon_Croix]

She’s probably not old enough yet for sacraments, but as she gets older you will want to keep an eye out for the vice of “desire for power”. Cooperation is the virtue she may need to grow in and it can be tied to the cross as Jesus submitted to his Father’s will by dying on the cross.

So, later, when observing the bad behavior, advise her towards Confession.